Angel of Darkness 2: Father Figure
by Andrea Evans
Summary: Jedah and Lilith's first meeting. Like "Angel of Darkness", I wrote this several years ago, consistent with as much of Jedah's official backstory as I could find at the time. The title "Father Figure" is from the song of the same name by George Michael.


**Father Figure**

*

In an bleak and empty wasteland at the farthest outskirts of Makai, one being stood alone. It was Jedah, the Angel of Darkness, wisest and mightiest of the Lords of the Realm, who had arisen from death itself to answer Makai's last desperate need. To the land he had given a sacred vow: that he would end the millennia of war that had all but destroyed Darkrealm. He would achieve a final peace, and save all of its inhabitants from untold suffering and death. But there was only one way he could be absolutely certain that war would never break out again. He had to use the unique knowledge he had gained from millennia spent as a dead soul. He had to embrace the spirits of Darkrealm's inhabitants as they left their dying bodies, and merge their very being with his own. Thus they would be protected from death forever, and shielded from each other, sharing his own immortality together. Only in this way could war be eradicated forever from Makai.

But this gathering of souls, one by one, would be painstakingly slow, and Jedah was impatient to end the useless suffering of his people at once. He knew that he would need help, as much help as he could raise, to complete his mission of mercy as soon as possible. He closed his eyes, and his wings lowered softly toward the earth. As all his attention turned inwards, he swayed just a little on his feet, and an expression of peace washed over his face. He freed his spirit from the bonds of his flesh, and sent his soul forth from his body. His unseen will flew over the lands with the speed of thought, touching the minds of his minions scattered across Darkrealm, recruiting them to his sacred cause. Far away, the Soul Bees, goaded by the new purpose he had given their Queen, abandoned their hives and flew toward the populated lands to gather spirits for him. They came in such multitudes that their bodies blackened the sky, and there was thunder in the sound of their massed wings.

Jedah knew they would be valuable assistants, with just enough skill to capture souls and bring them to him, but not enough intellect to make any use of these spirits for their own gain. But even now, he was still not content. He could feel the carnage and cruelty of war all over Darkrealm, and it would not allow him to rest. Driven by the pain of millions, he continued his search for assistance, ranging over all the lands, until at last there was no-one else on the earth he could call on who could be of help. In his desperation, he turned at last even to the strongholds of the ancient enemies of his clan, the vampires and the incubi. Silent and unseen, his spirit form passed their defenses of matter and of magic, as if they did not exist. He turned first to Castle Maximov, perched on the tip of the tallest mountain in all of Makai. But though he searched it from its highest spire to its deepest, darkest catacombs, he found nothing and no-one who could be of use. And so, he soared away from the vampires' home into the sky, flying straight toward the floating Castle Aensland, home of the incubi.

Disembodied, he slipped through the castle's massive walls, drifted down its corridors, searching, restless, driven. Again he found nothing of importance. Until, at length, he worked his way down toward the innermost rooms of the stronghold, where he knew that Berial, the former Lord of the incubi, had kept his sorcerous workshop. Berial had thought his laboratory was secret and safe from anyone else's knowledge. But Jedah knew of its existence, all the same: even the most hidden counsels of his foes were familiar to him. Such knowledge was necessary for him to maintain the precarious balance between the three Powers of Darkrealm. He passed through the spell-warded door as if it were mist, and paused on the threshold.

A burst of near-hysterical pleading greeted him the instant he entered the room. "HEY! Lemme OUT! C'mon, pleeease? I'll make it worth your while..." Jedah was startled by the sudden cry: none but another spirit could possibly have known he was there. He moved further into that dank and dripping chamber, all his attention focused on a dark alcove walled up with many spells. Beyond them, he sensed another spirit, pounding against the barrier, crying to be free. A slight, girlish thing, almost like a child-version of Morrigan, but her short hair was lavender rather than Morrigan's pale aqua. Her face looked almost innocent in its appeal, and the overall effect was disturbingly... _cute_. To Jedah's spirit-eyes she appeared to wear a copy of Morrigan's habitual costume, but one she had yet to fill out as Morrigan did. As Jedah approached the barrier, she faltered. "...You're, you're not Father! You're not even an incubus! Who are you?" Jedah shrugged, and as he did so his wings mirrored the movement, unfolding into view and arching widely behind his back. Her round red eyes widened further at the sight of those shining, scythelike blades. "The Angel!" she gasped, as wonder filled her face. "I thought you'd be ugly; the Lord of demons should be ugly. You're not. You're beautiful!" But her expression grew more and more shadowed as she continued, "Father spoke of you, many times. He... He always hated the vampires, but you..." At Jedah's inquiring glance she forced the words out, "I think you were the only thing he ever really feared." When he didn't say anything to deny this, she shrank back from the barrier. "Don't hurt me. Please." she whispered.

Jedah made an effort to project an aura of calm. "Don't be afraid, little one. I'm not here to hurt you. But you must tell me, who are you?"

She lowered her head and thought for a long moment, almost as if she were thinking up a name. "Call me Lilith!" she said at last. Jedah found it an interesting choice. He knew it was a reference to legends from Earthrealm, of the true first woman who was cast out for refusing to submit sexually to the first man. He listened carefully as she continued, "Well, I'm really part of Morrigan. Until... Until Father..." She faltered and her eyes began to fill with tears.

"Go on..." murmured Jedah, his voice low and soothing, his aura radiating encouragement.

"He tore us apart!" she wailed: a high, piercing cry of pain, followed by sobs. "He... he said that... if Morrigan was going to rule someday, she'd have to have 'the evil in her' removed. So he... he tore me out of my sister's soul and he locked me away and left me all alone!" Her voice rose to a raw shout by the end of the last sentence, and Jedah winced inside at the pain in that sound. He was privately appalled by what he had heard. Berial had done untold harm to his daughter by this mad act: it was plain that Morrigan's basic shallowness, her careless vanity and enslavement to the pleasures of the flesh had been caused by this halving of her essential self. And it wasn't even as if Berial had succeeded in his original aim: Jedah could sense that this spirit-fragment was, if anything, slightly less evil than Morrigan herself: certainly it was less jaded, less selfish.

Old pain was in her childlike eyes, and frustration and fury took over as she glared at Jedah through the barrier of spells. "I'm glad now you're not Father! ...I always begged him to let me out, but he never did, not even for a moment. The last time he was here I was so desperate I said 'Why don't you just kill me and get it over with?' You know what he said? He said he cared too much for me to kill me - but he cared about his heir more. He actually said that! His precious succession, that's all he really cared about. Nothing I could say or do mattered to him. He even used to laugh at me if I cried too long; he said Morrigan was better off without me. Even Morrigan's never been here: the only contact we've ever had is when I manage to send some of my thoughts into her dreams." She paused. "As a matter of fact, I haven't seen Father in centuries. Is he dead?"

Silently, Jedah nodded.

"Did you kill him?"

"No. I had no hand in his death." Jedah said levelly.

"Pity, I would've been grateful to you if you had killed him! I owed him for what he did to me... to us." Her pouting lip was cute, though the glint in her eyes was anything but.

Grateful. Jedah turned the word over in his mind. He saw that Berial had left him the perfect assistant in his urgent quest: who better to seduce and ensnare the souls of the living than a succubus? All he had to do was to win this child-spirit's allegiance to himself. Fortunately for him, she would very likely be grateful to anyone who released her; she had been alone for so long she was desperate for company of any kind. Jedah felt another pang of loathing at what Berial had done to his daughter: such solitary imprisonment was the worst torture to a succubus. She was innocent and frightened and incomplete; she had deserved nothing of what her father had done to her. It was so easy for Jedah to feel pity for this lonely child.

"I'm so very sorry... for what he did..." Jedah murmured softly into the stillness. Waves of sympathy and understanding washed over her from the tall, pale figure beyond the barrier, and when she looked up, the kindness in his eyes stunned her. She had never seen or felt any kindness from anyone before, and she was shaken by it. But his next words shocked her to the core of her being.

"...But I can undo everything he did to you. I can set you free from here ... and I can reunite you with Morrigan."

'what?' she mouthed silently. Her eyes were huge and she stared up at him as if he were the fountain of all the world's hopes.

"Yes." Jedah was an icon of absolute certainty. He knew that Lilith's likely concept of their reunion (both of their spirits sharing Morrigan's body) would be somewhat different from the one he had planned (both of their spirits, along with all the others in Darkrealm, sharing in his own immortality). But he also knew he had to allow her misconception to go unaddressed if he was to gain her help. And in all honesty, he felt certain that once both of their souls were safely merged with his own, in the end they would not see themselves as being cheated. He had to allow this omission to pass, for the good of all Makai.

"I can do these things for you." Jedah said. "I can free you at once." He held up his hand as she started to beam with delight. "But before I can bring you and Morrigan together again, I will need your help in turn." Her eyes turned to the floor, downcast, but she listened as he went on: "It is much, much harder to merge souls than to split them. To drop a glass on the floor is the work of a moment, and it takes no intellect at all; a simple gust of wind can do it. But to remake it? Even if you can find every crumb of glass, and reassemble it perfectly, how do you remove the cracks and make the glass a seamless whole once more?" He paused and she nodded slightly. "So, to restore you and Morrigan to your old self once more, I will need great power. And the ultimate source of all magical power is the spirit. I will need to gather many, many souls before I can attempt to rejoin you with your other half. And that's where you can help. You can gather souls for me. The faster you bring them to me, the sooner I will have enough power to make you whole once more."

She looked up at him and smiled, warmly, guilelessly. "Hey, it's the least I can do, isn't it? I wouldn't be free to do anything without you, and you wouldn't need all those souls anyway if it wasn't for me. I'll do it!"

Jedah studied the little spirit narrowly, but she was not capable of hiding any falsehood from his senses, which had been honed by long ages of experience. A smile broke across his face like the dawn, warm and radiant, as he sensed the honesty of her acceptance. Long beams of light spilled from Jedah's wings as he flexed them, and he held out his hand, pushing it through the shadowy wall of spells as if it did not exist. "Just hold on, hold on, and I won't let you go, my baby..." And Lilith put all her trust in him, and as he chanted softly "I will be your father figure... put your tiny hand in mine..." she clutched his hand as if she was drowning, and he pulled her toward him, out through the writhing black web of Berial's spells. The last clinging threads snapped and she flung herself into his arms, buried her face against his chest and sobbed with relief.

Jedah cupped the back of her head with one hand and stroked her hair, his long fingers sliding softly through the silky strands. With the other hand he patted her back as he murmured soothingly, wordlessly, deep in his chest. Her crying eased rapidly under his gentle ministrations, until she looked up at him, staring into his eyes for a long, silent moment. The next instant, she was floating higher, sliding upwards pressed against him until they were eye to eye. Suddenly she grabbed the back of his head and pulled him into an openmouthed kiss, as enthusiastic as it was inexperienced. It took all of Jedah's self control not to back away with a snort of surprise. But he knew that any sort of reluctance right now would be the worst possible reaction. After all, she was a succubus: she was just relating to him in the only way she knew. Jedah understood that the whole society of incubi and succubi was founded on one thing only: desire. Sexuality was the basis of all esteem, all regard, all loyalty. Morrigan held her position as current Lord not because she was Berial's daughter, but because she was the most seductive creature the other incubi and succubi knew. And this Lilith was a former part of Morrigan herself: her help would be well worth having. But to win her over he would have to interest her on a sensual level, rather than the intellectual level he most often used. This would take very careful handling.

Jedah eased gently out of the kiss at last, and only murmured, "...Not bad for now. But these things are so much better in the flesh." he leered, and the expression successfully cheered Lilith out of her initial pout. "When you and your sister are united again, then we'll ... celebrate together, the way it really should be done." She gave him a leer of her own at this suggestion, and the depths of anticipation in her eyes showed she was a very fast learner.

"But before I can reunite you two, I'll need many many souls." She sighed a little and wiggled against him, but he could tell it was only a token protest. He bent his head and his lips brushed her ear softly as he whispered to her just one of the many secrets he had learned as a dead soul: how to trap and keep dying spirits as they left their corpses. With this knowledge she would be able to help him in his true quest - the salvation of all the souls in Darkrealm - even though she thought she worked only for the betterment of her sister and herself. When his quiet murmuring had stilled, she turned and kissed him again. Forewarned, he responded ardently: pouring all his genuine warmth for her into his kiss. Ahh, how he longed to embrace her completely, to open his heart to her, join his very being with hers in a union more absolute, more intense, more ecstatic, than any that mere flesh could offer. ...But no. After she had helped him bring eternal peace to Makai, then they could be as one, until the end of time.

She leaned back in his arms, just far enough so that she could gaze into his eyes. Her whole being shone with utter, heartfelt adoration: she was a worshipper come face to face with her God. "I love you, Jedah-sama." she breathed.

The absolute truth of her devotion wrenched at Jedah. Unbidden, the words rose to his lips. "I love you, Lilith-chan." he whispered, the soft tones a caress.

"Wait for me..." Smiling bravely, the little spirit drifted backward out of his arms. Their gazes remained locked until she faded from view.

When he knew she was beyond the Castle walls, he reached out with his power and gave her one last gift. He clad her spirit in an illusion of substance: the appearance of a physical body that matched her spiritual form.

The distant peals of her gleeful laughter tingled in his mind, carrying her joy and gratitude back to him as she flew down toward the earth: free as the wind, swift as a hunting bird, eager to begin gathering souls to his cause.

Jedah's spirit departed Castle Aensland, spanning countless leagues in the blink of an eye, re-entering his body once more. When he opened his eyes and looked again on the physical world, the smile Lilith had left him with still curved his lips.


End file.
